Wednesday, 31 January 2007

The big day is fast approaching. We're getting ready. The menu for our tail gate has been drafted. The grid it being filled with our bets wagered. Nikolas has a shirt to wear. It's getting exciting! Da Bears! Go Bears! Boo Donkeys! There's just a bit of rivalry going on in the Lee family with some of them in Indy and others of us in Chicago... Should be interesting!

Monday, 29 January 2007

I only had 100+ pictures to choose from today. These 4 are my favorites. Can you see the dimple on her chubby little check? Yup, she still has crazy out of control hair. Given that she's taken to commando crawling and scooting all over the great room carpet, it's impossible to maintain any resemblance of "tamed".

If you click on the pictures it will open them bigger in another window. And, for whatever reason, when I save the pictures for the web, the color isn't holding true to what I "corrected". It probably has something to do with RGB versus CMYK. But, lately, I've been too annoyed with my pictures not turning out the way that I want that I'm just plain tired of messing around with them!

Sunday, 28 January 2007

At long last, I'm sitting down to blog. To catch you up on the exciting life and times of our fab 4!

Last weekend Ali came to babysit Mia so that the boys and I could go downtown for the Bulls game. Guess what? The Jazz won! Nikolas did NOT appreciate his Mummy's needling as she pointed out that her Jazz were beating his Bulls. I think the highlight of the game for the Little Fellow was that his donut won the Dunkin Donut race earning him a free donut. Although, truth be told, his Daddy tried cards with him before the race - we don't want 4 year olds winning cups of coffee now, do we?

Friday night we had an indoor picnic and movie night. We cooked up some wings, tater tots and celery sticks, plopped ourselves on the picnic blanket and had a delicious feast in front of the TV. I think I'm the only member of the fab 4 that saw the movie from beginning to end. Even Mia is getting into TV... Funny given we worked so hard to keep Nikolas away from it for so long... I guess that's package and parcel if you're not the oldest, eh?

Today we invested a small fortune in renewing our library membership... $372! Ouch! Tough bill to swallow... Hope we get a brick or something as commemoration of our investment! But as we go weekly and always come home with half of the easy books, I suppose it's money well spent - good to encourage the reading. Nikolas' latest thing is to spell the words, he loves to spell. Especially from right to left. I guess you take it any way you can at this age!

Not only did we invest in literary fun but culinary delights too. The grocery store had Earths Best food on sale 10 for $6, that's 50 cents off a jar that's normally $1.10. Day light robbery I tell you! So, we came home with 36 jars of baby food for our Little Girl!

Friday, 19 January 2007

Can't summons the creative muster for a smashing title today. Been on a bit of a dry spell with them lately. Been rather uninclined to blog really... It's getting old. Same old, same old. There hasn't been much variety to our routine really. Which makes "material" difficult to conjur up.

We made Gymboree "on our way home" (except it's the other direction) from our customary Friday trip to the gym. Had some Gymbucks that were burning a hole in my {empty} wallet. Bought some summer shirts and a pair of shorts for Nikolas and some more cooler weather clothes for Mia. They have some really adorable spring outfits for baby girls. Just can't swallow paying the asking price. Especially when I know that they will sooner or later go on sale.

Bought Mia some new hair clips as we're still trying to figure out what to do withthis "wild child" wild and crazy hair that she's sporting... Not entirely sure that double Bam Bam ponytails are the solution. Not to mention the fifteen minutes it took to put them in her hair! First I had to do battle with her for possesion of said ponytail holders. Then I had to try combing out two sections of hair on a moving target. Once this hair was gathered and regathered and she held still long/momentarily enough, the @#%*& ponytail holders had to be wrapped. All the while, Nikolas is moving from one end of the bed to the other. And her head to looking between him and every other spot in the room!

Mia has developed the "you have a camera and I'm not looking" pose already! Apparently I take WAY too many pictures of my little girl... You have to admit, she's pretty darn cute... I can't quite figure out how to fix the overall picture without taking the blue out of her eyes. You should see the new Photoshop book I got from Amazon. It's like an advanced college level course! For which I don't quite have time for... I can just hear it in my head now "My Mum couldn't play with me because she's teaching herself how to fix the pictures of me she made me sit for."

Wednesday, 17 January 2007

My little man... He wants to have his picture taken too. I love these big brown eyes, you could melt in them.

Guess what the big brown (UPS) truck delivered today?! My birthday present; a Wacom tablet. Can't wait to play with it. Need more room... Need more room... Always need more room. Like this house isn't big enough!

Monday, 15 January 2007

... that's Mia's latest nickname! She's been a little out of sorts. Screeching and grumping. Grumping and screeching. It's very wearing to listen to. It's not a whole lot of fun playing the guess why I'm not happy game. Especially given that she had previously been a very jovial, happy little girl.

Speaking of our little girl, she has gone two nights without her dream feed! We slowly, very slowly, whittled her down to nothing. I kind of miss it. I miss that little arm that used to stroke my side. I miss our cuddles. I'll miss it most, oddly, on the days that I work. It was a good reason after being away from her 11 and a half hours to go into her room and see her.

There's a loaf of watercress and cheese potato bread in the oven to go with some cans of Amy's butternut squash soup for dinner. I'm so not in the mood to cook dinner come that time when dinner ought to be in the works... I love cooking. Nikolas loves cooking with me. I love having my little "shoe chef" in the kitchen with me. I'm just plain tired of dreaming up recipes and menus and shopping lists.

Wednesday, 10 January 2007

I'm recording the events of this week and trying to take more "action" shots of our activities to scrapbook, a week in the life of the Lee-Bishop kids. It's fairly representative of a "typical" week, of the daily schedule we keep. When/if I ever get it finished, I'll post it. It's been a while since I've added anything to the scrapbook photo section. Largely, because I'm too lazy to get it scanned in. In part, because I'm not pleased with the way my pictures are being printed. Having some color management problems... I've been trying, 7 1/2 years later, to put together my wedding album. Just can't the picture quality I want. So very frustrating!

Mia actually pulled the sippy cup to her own mouth and "sucked" from it today, at lunch! It's only the second time she's been given sippy priveleges really, so she's doing pretty well. I don't think she understands water and it's flavorlessness. Everything else she has had, has some type of flavour. Not water. I've tried capturing the fleeting strange look on her face but I don't have a fast enough shutter speed. It's not long before she reverts to just gnawing on rubber "sipper".

This afternoon is Nikolas' first day of a new session of swimming lessons. Ought to prove interesting for both he and I. Him because he's going back into group lessons. For me, because Lifetime has chosen to leave the Foss Swim School and do their own "Swim University". There are far fewer levels of lessons which means a much broader scope and wider ranges of abilities within the same class. Hopefully there will be more kids at his middle to top of the range within his level. Otherwise, we're back to square one...

Michael is on his way back from his one hour interview in New York. It sounds like there are possibilities... We'll see...

Sunday, 07 January 2007

Another busy day! Nikolas and I went to the gym and stopped at Jewel and Costco on the way home for provisions for the week. We came home to a living room floor full of clean clothes! Don't know quite what the stainless steel work table in the laundry room is for - apparently not folding and storing clean clothes...

This afternoon Mia sampled her first biter biscuit. We were all munching and crunching away on popcorn and she wanted a snack too. So, a biscuit it was. She didn't know what to do at first, naturally. She thunked it around on the high chair like a toy. Once enough saliva was dispensed to dissolve the biscuit she was thrilled to pieces with her snack! It was comical to watch her hand-mouth coordination, or lack thereof.

Nikolas and Daddy built the Sears Tower out of Lincoln Logs. It's interesting to hear the conversation between father and son as Nikolas wants everything to be built with "structions" and Dad likes to create without blueprints.

Saturday, 06 January 2007

It has been a rather busy day - amazing how much we've done really. Mizzy Mia is still recovering from her ailment (which she has shared with her Daddy!) so we've cleaned up one explosive poo and changed outfits once already. I mean we when I say we, thank God for Nikolas! Don't know where I'd put all the stinky wipes if it weren't for the shopping bags he brings me... She's happily played within eye shot of Nikolas and I.

He and I have ; gone to the library and checked out more books, disassembled most of Christmas, made banana bread, done the dishes, fiddled around in the craft room, gone around the circle, and now he's "resting" while I sit here and blog. He was rather disappointed this morning that Michael is out of commission - he told anybody whom he spoke with on the phone - he had nobody to play with...

Friday, 05 January 2007

... on Mizzy Mia;* raspberry blowing - she loves to purse those lips together and see just how much spittle she can send flying. Best time to perform said activity is during meal time, preferably lunch.* finger munching - she just loves to chew on her thumb. She sticks it into the corner of her mouth and gnaws away. Sometimes it goes a little too far into her mouth and she gags herself.

... on Nikolas;* Lincoln Logs - It all began with Megan and Matthew sending him his first box for his birthday. Then the Riesterer's added to the collection at Christmas with Mia following soon thereafter with the third box. We have the whole log village!* the PlayMaze at Lifetime Fitness - he has lost his neighborhood friends but he has new friends that he runs around the play maze with at the gym. I swear he's sweatier than I am when I go to pick them up!

... on Michael;* the search is on - he is/we are on full fledge job search mode! This time it's serious, he means business. He's done with the current employer and ready to move on, it's just a matter of where. It's really starting to heat up. Still early yet, but there's some definite forward momentum. I'm afraid of jinxing things so let's leave it at that.

And now for the real reason you're here, pictures of the kids. I just plopped them down in front of my favorite picture taking window in the "dining room" (should be renamed the photo taking studio) and took pictures. Here are my top three;